Painting white woodwork to look like wood: Epic!

I spoke too soon when I said I had quickly found the base color for painting all the white woodwork in my living room and dining room to look like wood — aka faux bois painting. Getting the custom color base right took Denise — a genius decorative painter — A DAY AND A HALF. Even though she is a pro. Or: Because she is a pro!

Denise arrived Tuesday morning.

She started working with my samples and with formulations to get a glaze that looked just right.

I started cleaning all the woodwork.

I made two or three more runs to the hardware store for more basecoat paint samples.

The work continued into Wednesday. While she waited for paint samples to dry, Denise taped the floors and put down paper to protective paper.

…And finally, at about 3 p.m., she/we had a clear and decisive PERFECT winner.

The color combo on the top half of the board at the far right was the winner — it looks FABULOUS — a terrific match to the existing stained woodwork elsewhere in the room. In this photo, though, we just have two coats of the base coat on. Glazing, finessing, and clear top coat yet to come.

D & me a-thrifting a few years ago.

We started painting late Wednesday afternoon. It’s now 6:30 p.m. Thursday night, as I am writing this story. One hour ago, we finished the first coat of the living room wainscoting and bookcases — but not the windows and not the ceiling beams with their millions of 1″ x 1″ dentils that are going to be “some therapy,” to put it kindly, to paint.

Friday: We’re aiming to get the second coat up. Then, Denise will go home for the long weekend… I’ll try to get going on the dining room wainscoting over the weekend… and she’ll come back next week and start glazing. Then: Onto the ceiling beams.

This whole project is going to be a boatload of work — super process-oriented, infinite patience required. Not for the faint of heart — or pocketbook, if you are paying for help (to be clear: Yes, Denise is a friend, but you can bet I am still paying her!) It will be one of the most epic things I’ve ever done — but I am already 110% sure it is going to be an amazing transformation. So thrilling!

SOOO true. My sister had dentil molding in her NYC condo unit that she stripped years of paint off of. It took her months. She would have been better off replacing that molding but it was an antique style not available any more. Kudos to you Pam – that is a lot of really tedious work. It will all look so great when you are done.

When I have more time, I’ll give more info later on the base and how difficult it was to get to it. BUT, Denise actually made a very custom mix for the glaze. A dab of this, a dab of that, to get it just so — and there were several versions to get the right glaze over the right base. So there’s no “recipe” per se.

Wow! What a difference a day makes…the fireplace appears so different now with the base coat instead of the white paint. The end result will be spectacular. It has been most fascinating to watch the living room transformation unfold.

My 1959 ranch has a ton of wood painted to look like stained wood. I’ve always thought it was really weird, so it’s neat to read articles about someone doing this! And now I know there’s actually a name for it – too funny 🙂

You know I had my worries when you said you were going to do this, one because I just love white painted woodwork, but seeing this you can already tell how fabulous it’s going to be! I can’t wait to see The rest.

I did this over my painted mid century modern main bathroom. At first I just tried stripping it, But found paint grade wood that just wouldn’t have looked good stained so came back and did this — it’s not for the faint of heart! I did it back when I was in my 20s, But don’t think I would take on that big of a job now days. Kudos to you and Denise!

I cant really make out what products you are using. Can you tell me the brand? I stripped all of my interior shutters of white paint, and am starting the grain work. I would love to post a picture of the doors I have already finished. You are correct, it takes patience and time… I am getting ready to paint some windows, and getting a good brown is difficult.

The basecoat is two coats of Benjamin Moore “Ben” in a custom color we spent 1.5+ days working to get. The glaze was part of the 1.5 days’ process: It starts with Rustoleum Cabinet/Furniture Transformations “Java Brown,” which Denise then custom colors with Golden paints I have on hand. It will get a top coat of some sort of poly, too.

I am very interested in following this project. I have an odd combination of painted woodwork and stained woodwork in my house. In the living room the window frames are all stained and lacquered, and I decided to leave it like that and refurbish the areas that had fading or water damage. But the baseboards were in bad shape and didn’t look good with the color of the wood flooring in the living room, so we replaced those with white. The interior front door is also stained, and the top of our built-in stereo cabinet is stained the same color. I’m satisfied with this combination but not sure about some of the other rooms. Of course, I am living with it to see.

My 1948 childhood home had nice oak hardwood floors, wood stained doors and all the trim but the cool thing I remember was how the metal heat registers & cool air return metal covers were all painted to match and look like the wood trim! I guess they were Faux Bois too. Boy I wish I had that in my home. They blended in so nicely.

The original builders of my 1954 ranch used this treatment on almost all of the original wood trim – which started as custom-milled raw oak, and oak-veneered interior doors. Why they went to the effort of a faux wood finish on top of nicely-grained oak is something of a mystery, and it means I have to learn something new to repair damaged and missing pieces.

My childhood home, which was built between 1908-1910 (Transitional Queen Anne? With a definite Craftsman dormer/attic add-on) had faux bois paint treatment on all the window moldings (which were obviously more Victorian-y) to match the later-built staircase. I remember when my parents renovated in the 1980s, my mom pointed out how cool the paint job was, but was resigned to just painting over the whole thing in cream since faux bois is a true artform. I wouldn’t expect ANYTHING less than my favorite inspiration/unwitting enabler Pam Kueber, to tackle and perfect such an endeavor 🙂 love your kind of crazy, and the fact you generously share it with other crazy and lovable strangers.

I grained the sheetrock walls in my dining room and all the woodwork ( window frames, baseboards) to match, also the switch covers and outlet covers, to resemble oak. Base was Benjamin Moore
1100, if I remember correctly, with a brown glaze that was combed and manipulated. Panel “mouldings” were made with a darker basecoat. Turned out great. My Dad walked in and asked me where I got the “paneling”, fooled him! Oh, I put 2 coats of satin water based poly on top, still looks great many years later.